Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Supplement 4: Zyklon B and Gas Detectors in Birkenau Crematorium II
some ammonium based flame retardants to react with cellulose, thus giving a fabric
so treated resistance to leaching. 670
Summary
In summary I am saying
– it is certain the Topf letter has nothing to do with Zyklon.
– It is almost certain that the HCN danger referred to arose from the waste incinerator.
I would be astonished if it were shown that such was not the case.
– It is probable that the HCN detectors were wanted because of a potential
danger of HCN development in the incineration of fabrics, particularly rayons
treated with flame retardants. However, I am far from certain on this,
and I will not be astonished if other materials, consumed in the waste incinerator,
were shown to have been suspected by the Auschwitz management as
potential sources of HCN development.
Observations
Above I promised to return to the question of the relevance of the problem
treated here to the “extermination” allegations. The mass of documents shows that
Auschwitz was a large concentration camp with a disastrous death rate, due
mainly to typhus carried by lice. In response to such problems, the Germans made
great use of the pesticide Zyklon B and constructed large crematoria. There are no
records showing that Jews were “gassed” or “exterminated”. That is clear, and it
ought not be necessary to argue that such was not the case. The documentation is
immense, and the physical facts concerning the camp are conclusive. For more
detail, see the remarks I delivered at the 1992 IHR Convention on the death rates
and the crematoria capacities at Auschwitz and other camps. 671
Another approach uses the normal historical method; you study what the people
of the time were doing. I have discussed elsewhere the trap that the historian
Walter Laqueur got himself into by applying this normal historical method to
Auschwitz. 672 For a more general and introductory discussion, see Faurisson’s tutorial.
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For practical purposes, the entire “extermination” legend rests on the claim
that Auschwitz was an “extermination camp” where about a million Jews were
gassed with Zyklon B in otherwise designated rooms within the crematorium
buildings. Since that is emphatically not what the historical record says, the promoters
of the legend are highly selective in choosing documents, which Pressac
calls “criminal traces,” which, it is claimed, prove their thesis. The HCN gas de-
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McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 7th edition (1992), vol. 7, pp. 139f (article
on “Flameproofing”).
A.R. Butz, “Some Thoughts on Pressac’s Opus”, Journal of Historical Review, vol. 13, no. 3,
May/June 1993, pp. 23-37. Supplement 3 here.
A.R. Butz, “Context and Perspective in the ‘Holocaust’ Controversy”, Journal of Historical Review,
vol. 3, no. 4, Winter 1982, pp. 371-405. Supplement 2 here.
R. Faurisson, “Auschwitz: Facts and legend,” Journal of Historical Review, vol. 16, no. 4, July-
Aug. 1997, pp. 14-19.
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